ORLANDO - Implementing healthcare reform and meeting stage 1 "meaningful use" requirements dominate the priorities of healthcare IT professionals, according to the results of a survey released Sunday at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual meeting.
Healthcare reform was selected as the business issue with the most impact on healthcare by 36% of the 326 healthcare IT professionals who participated in this year's HIMSS Leadership Survey. The respondents represented nearly 700 hospitals; 80% identified themselves as senior IT executives.
The key business objective, selected by 25% of the respondents, was to achieve stage 1 meaningful use requirements established by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and to qualify to receive stimulus payments provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. Jennifer Horowitz, senior director of research at HIMSS Analytics, said that 81% of the respondents expected their organization to qualify for stage 1 meaningful use incentives in either 2011 or 2012.
Almost 70% reported that they were making additional investments in healthcare IT to qualify, an increase of almost 10% from the prior year's survey. About half have made purchases of $5 million or less as of February 1, 2011, on healthcare technology needed for stage 1-related healthcare equipment.
However, operating budgets are expected to increase in 2011, driven by the overall growth in the number of systems and technologies and additional staffing required to comply with government regulations. Respondents also expect to hire additional IT staff in the next 12 months, with the greatest staffing needs reported to be in the area of installing clinical applications and hiring clinical informaticists. A lack of financial support for information technology and a lack of staffing continue to be identified as barriers.
Other findings
Other key survey results included:
- More than half of respondents had a fully operational electronic health record (EHR) system in at least one facility in their organization. About 10% had not yet begun an installation.
- Forty-four percent are participating in a health information exchange (HIE); 31% have no plans to do so, even though HIEs are currently available for 21%.
- Internal breaches of security are the primary concern regarding the security of data. About 25% of the respondents experienced a security breach during the past 12 months.
- This year, the primary areas of focus of organizational infrastructure enhancements are server environments and virtual services. Cloud computing was elected only by a handful of respondents, as were interoperability and integration of medical devices with healthcare IT.
